By Rob Lyons So after visiting the Republican Convention in Milwaukee last month, I’ll be in Chicago this week to check out the Democrats. I’ll stay at the Ancient Dragon Zen Gate Zen Center, thanks to a generous invitation from Laurie Hogetsu Belzer, the guiding dharma teacher. Sunday morning I’ll give a dharma talk and then immediately after I’ll be on a Zoom call with fellow Board members back at Berkeley Zen Center. Sunday evening Read more…
Project 2025 by Rob Lyons Thursday July 18 brought the curtain down, mercifully, on the 2024 Republican National Convention. Donald Trump accepted the Republican Presidential nomination with a gracious and conciliatory speech about national unification. For fifteen minutes he did quite well, sounding presidential after all: this is what a brush with mortality can do to you. Then he couldn’t help himself: he scrapped the teleprompter and veered back to his canned stump speech, a lost Read more…
by Rob Lyons, Thursday July 18, 2024 Months ago, when the Milwaukee Mayor and Aldermen were sold on the idea of hosting this convention, they were told it would pump $200 million in outside spending into the local economy. The reality has fallen far short. Many convention delegates stayed out of town. Some took to Lake Geneva for example, a summer resort destination an hour south of Milwaukee, sometimes referred to as a “second hub Read more…
by Rob Lyons This afternoon I wasn’t able to find much happening either in the realm of protest or local counter-programming, so I decided to go exploring. I drove around town aimlessly. I stopped at Comet Coffee and had the veggie scramble for lunch. I blundered onto a freeway heading west. I got off at the first exit and headed back toward downtown through an industrial area not unlike Third Street in SF. I drove Read more…
by Rob Lyons It began on June 27 and lasted 18 days, less than three weeks, a run of startling good fortune for Donald Trump and his candidacy: These events seem a perfect storm to many, and have precipitated an existential crisis within the Democratic Party. Eighteen Congressmen and one Senator have publicly called for Biden to exit the race. George Clooney published an op-ed piece in the New York Times, asking for him to Read more…
by. Rob Lyons, Monday July 15 This afternoon the Republican National Convention officially opened in Milwaukee’s Fiserv Forum. Across the river at Red Arrow Park, less than half a mile distant, more than a thousand protestors from 100 organizations joined together in the “Coalition to March on the RNC,” speaking from a makeshift podium, chanting, waving flags and banners, expressing their disdain for the Republican Party and its politics, and later marching. The park was Read more…
by Rob Lyons The events of the past 24 hours have shaken everybody’s confidence, and heightened the fear that our fragile peace may be splintered at any moment. Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers has called for guns to be banned within the “soft perimeter” around Milwaukee’s Fiserv Forum, but the Secret Service has refused to alter its security plan. The Daily Show with Stephen Colbert, which had been scheduled to be taped nearby the RNC this Read more…
by Rob Lyons I was in the shuttle van at O’Hare, on my way to the car rental place, when the news came over the radio that Trump had been shot at. I had hardly any reaction, oddly, maybe because they said he wasn’t seriously injured. I was 9 years old in the third grade when JFK was assassinated, and I had no idea what was going on – but within days I had absorbed Read more…
by Rob Lyons I fly into Chicago Saturday afternoon, July 13. I’ll rent a car and then drive up to Milwaukee. I’ll be staying at the Milwaukee Zen Center, thanks to a generous invitation from Reirin Gumble, the abiding priest at MZC. Sunday morning July 14 I’ll be driving to Madison to visit with my friend Susan O’Leary and a number of her dharma friends from various local sanghas, to talk about opportunities to combine Read more…
by Rob Lyons “What I mean by humble is knowing how to find and take your correct place in any situation in a harmonious way that allows you the space to turn, and in turn to be turned, and to function in the most appropriate way; that allows the dynamics of the present situation to function in the best possible way for all concerned, even though you may not be recognized or stand out in Read more…